Star Harbor Nights

Donald Anderson looked down at the tray of food with palpable dread. After his psych discharge, he'd figured professional minionhood was the best option. It was cushier than street crime... with the security of a regular paycheck... and better paying than any legitimate job he could get. When he was given the choice of babysitting the pet freak upstairs, or doing hazardous missions in the field, he'd jumped at the chance to sit on his rear all day. He hadn't counted on just how freaky a freak could be.

"I say, it's your turn to feed it," Anderson said to his partner. "I did it last time."

"You did it last time because you dodged it three times before," Bradley Price retorted.

"I did not!" Anderson snapped, though he actually had.

"Well, I'm not going, so if you won't, I guess it'll just starve," Price said.

"Let it!"

The argument was ended by the sudden appearance of the General in the doorway. Though he had been forcibly "retired", he still wore his uniform, minus the army insignia, but with all the decorations and indicators of rank.

"If you don't both get up there right now, I'll be feeding her... your steaming corpses," he roared.

The two men hastened to obey. As afraid as they were of what the thing upstairs might do, they were equally afraid of what the General would do. He wasn't a man who made idle threats. They clamored up the metal staircase to the converted warehouse office. The windows had been boarded over, and the walkway leading up to it had been covered with thick carpeting,after the room's occupant had complained of the noise.

A circular cross-stitched sign on the door read "Molly's Room." Anderson knocked lightly on the door, which had no handle.

"Food, Miss Molly!" he called a little shakily.

The door swung open with an unnaturally loud creak. The light from the warehouse spilled into the room in a rectangular pool. There were no lights inside, but it wasn't completely dark. A dim eerie glow suffused the room, emanating from the many dolls and toys of every description, from the rocking horse in the corner to the train on the tracks that wound around the floor, to the clowns and animals and statuettes and puppets of every sort that lined the high shelves around all four walls. Even the door itself glowed.

All the toys that crowded the shelves, as well as those seated at the low plastic table in the middle of the room, craned their heads around at the door, their sightless glass and plastic eyes glinting in the darkness. Anderson gulped.

At the far end of the oblong table sat what to first glance appeared to be a doll, though her pale china complexion held the faintest blush of life. She wore an elaborate gown of pale green lace, with a faded and tattered ribbon of the same material in her flaxen hair.

"Refreshments for the tea party!" she declared, holding up a tiny porcelain tea cup. The toys seated around her, which included a stuffed giraffe, a one-eyed teddy bear that was bigger than Molly herself, a patchwork clown, and a sock monkey all pawed more or less uselessly at the cups in front of them in an attempt to imitate the gesture. The clown managed to stick a stubby porcelain finger through the loop of his, and the monkey hooked its with a cruely curved wire claw that protruded from the end of his arm. "How perfectly sweet of you," Molly said. "Now, you must join us."

"Uh, we have l-lots of work to do, M-Miss Molly," Anderson stammered, setting the tray down gingerly on the floor.

"But it shall be ever so much fun," she said insistently.

"Just loads of work," Price said. "But thanks much, anyway. Some other time?"

"I think it's rather rude to turn down an invitation," Molly said. "And we don't like rude people. We don't like rude people one tiny... little... bit."

She stood up. The toys around the table sat up straighter on their chairs. The monkey shook its arm until the cup fell free of its claw.

Anderson tripped over his feet stumbling backwards, and landed flat on his ass on the carpeted walkway. Price wasn't as quick to react. A jack-in-the box launched itself from the shelf above the door, the box striking him in the back of his head, knocking him forward. The jester inside grabbed on to his collar and whipped its spring-like body around his neck, choking him. The door swung closed. He lost his balance wrestling with the murderous toy and fell to the floor as the monkey advanced towards him.

"We're going to have to find another way of dealing with her," the General remarked to Drosselmeier, as the minion's screams echoed down throughout the complex. "That makes five that she's killed so far."

"She'd only ever animated toys and dolls before," Drosselmeier noted. "She was perhaps slow to realize that there is no difference between 'unliving matter' and 'once living matter', but very quick to grasp the implications, yes?"

"It's a damnable waste," the General said. "The military already has half a dozen ways to animate a corpse... we could have used any one of those if we wanted an undead army."

"Still, they could prove useful for security purposes, if we can convince Miss Molly to give up her new toys once they are no longer so pretty."

"I'll admit we could use some help in that department. We lost signifcant firepower last night," the General said. "The Aces were nothing... I didn't object to throwing them away on a gambit... but the Amazon girl was another matter entirely."

"Pah, if I had simply been allowed to dissect them in the first place, we wouldn't need to waste resources on this telepath," Drossselmeier said.

"And if your theory was wrong, we wouldn't have had anything," the General countered. "But come now... let's go view the new recruits."

"What... have we made new acquisitions already?" Drosselmeier asked, surprised.

"Not quite yet," the General said. "But we've selected the next group of targets."

He lead the elderly man through the warehouse, past the tanks of volatile chemicals and experimental drugs as well as the racks of military-grade hardware, to the central command center, where a young man in a black t-shirt and acid washed jeans sat playing an online first-person combat game on the massive central monitor.

"C.C., why don't you hit pause or whatever and put the footage up on the monitor for us?" the General said.

"I'm a genius, not a remote control," the young man sneered. "Besides, I'm in the middle of a wicked game here."

 "Aren't we all?" Drosselmeier asked.

"Just do it," the General said.

The man called C.C. switched his game to one of the smaller monitors without missing a beat in the virtual firefight. The big screen went black for a moment then came to life, displaying a clip from the show American Hero. On stage, a young man in a rainbow striped bodysuit managed to cling to his rather earnest smile while cringing from judge Simon Hood's critiques.

"You come on here with a code name only a drag queen could love, and despite having the ability to project any apearance you wish, you choose that face..."

"This is my face."

"That's beside the point... and you choose an outfit that looks like a hippy Richard Simmon's warm-up suit."

"What's wrong with my costume?"

"Well, have you thought about wearing a dress?"

"Freeze it," the General said.

"If you wish to harness the powers of this 'Simon', I should tell you there are some depths to which even a Nazi scientist will not sink," Drosselmeier said.

"Not him... the boy," the General said. "We're getting better at interfacing with power triggers every day. Can you imagine an operative who can take on the appearance of anybody... turn invisible... walk through walls... travel anywhere on the planet at the speed of light? Those powers are wasted fighting bank robbers and muggers. This kid needs to be in wetworks."

"And you are thinking that we shall be the ones to provide him with this crucial piece of career counseling?" Drosselmeier asked.

"Not just him," the General said. "Run the sequence!"

A series of further clips from the show ran through the screen, showing a different aspiring hero being torn to shreds by the acid-tongued judge interspersed with footage of their powers in action.

"Lose some weight..."

"What's your power, lack of poise?"

"Do you have a martial arts instructor? You should think about suing him."

"Was it necessary to include the footage of the critiques?" Drosselmeier asked.

"The guy cracks me up," the General said. "Reminds me of a drill sergeant I knew."

"So the plan is to draw our recruits from among the losers and also-rans of one of your 'reality shows'," Drosselmeier said. "The, what is the phrase? Wannabes. I am... somewhat skeptical about this."

"Think about it," the General said. "These shows give us a wealth of intelligence on them, from their personality profiles to the upper limits of their powers... most of these mutants hold back during government testing if they consent to it in the first place, but during a contest with fame and fortune at stake, why wouldn't they give it their all? That, and their quasi-celebrity status gives us some rather unique options in attracting them, compared to the rank-and-file crimefighters."

"Ah, so it is precisely because they are 'wannabes' that they will be vulnerable," Drosselmeier said. "I like that. Why stop with these four? Why not go after the whole roster?

"Because Uncle Sam has much the same idea. My contacts tell me that they're going to be forming a joint 4B-military unit composed of superhuman operatives, mostly culled from the American Hero ranks. Fortunately for us, they're more concerned with public relations value, psychological suitability, and loyalty than with useful power levels, leaving us the cream of the crop."

"What of the Destroyer's Daughter, then? She would seem to be the most powerful, on a purely physical level, but I cannot imagine that the government of the United States would wish to associate themselves with her... or vice-versa."

"She is... unsuitable for our purposes," the General said. "Her 4B registration files reveal an unexpressed Calder gene, inherited from her mother. If activated by Lysenkol exposure, there's no telling what could happen. We could end up with the most powerful superhuman on the planet..."

"...or she could go up like a hydrogen bomb," Drosselmeier said. "Hmm. A pity. Perhaps... her father?"

"I have it on the best authority that Wallace Flagg is dead," the General said.

"Your military has been mistaken about this many times before."

"The best authority."

"Well, a pity, then," Drosselmeier said. "When do we begin the acquisition phase?"

"It's happening as we speak."

In a bare, darkened efficiency apartment in Star Harbor's Twistville neighborhood, a scruffy-looking, unshaven man sat in a battered recliner chair, the only piece of furniture in the room. He had the look of somebody who either was about to start or had just finished crying. When the phone rang, he jumped and looked around in confusion. It had been so long since he'd heard it, he didn't recognize the sound at first.

"Hi!" a cheery female voice said in his ear when he answered it. "Have I reached Hollis Woodrow?"

"...yes," the man said hesitantly.

"Mr. Woodrow, this is Andi Markham, with Toy Makers Syndicate," she said. "We'd like to talk to you about your likeness rights."

"My like what?" he asked. He knew the words should mean something to him, but he felt like his head was in a fog.

"Mr. Woodrow, we saw you on American Hero and we're big fans. We think the producers of the show really missed the boat when it comes to you," Markham said. "We want to license Holly Gram."

"You... seriously?" he asked, excitement growing. The fog seemed to be lifting.

"Seriously. We're talking toys to begin with... then a syndicated cartoon, to publicize them. We're in tentative talks to get a comic book spin-off, if the cartoon takes off, but obviously all of that depends on you."

"I... well, you know WolfTV owns the name 'Holly Gram' now, right?" he said. He looked at himself in the dusty, smudgey mirror that hung on the wall and grimaced at the image reflected dimly within it. The room filled with light, illuminating his features. There was a flash of brighter light, and the figure in the mirror suddenly had a haircut, picture-perfect blond highlights, and a closer shave than any razor ever gave. He looked appraisingly at the new image, and then an extra twinkle appeared in his eyes.

"We let the lawyers worry about that," Markham said. "They'll hash something out, offer some percentage... Wolf's not making any money off the rights they have, so they won't fight too hard."

"Okay, but, um... the thing is... I was actually thinking about changing it? To something, you know, more dashing?"

"Even better. What do you have in mind?"

"Hollywood."

Silence reigned for long seconds. Holly held his breath... which was academic, since he didn't actually need to breathe.

"I love it," Andi Markham said finally. "How soon could you get out to California?"

"In less time than it would take to tell you," Holly said. "But, listen... I have this friend? She's kind of going to be my new partner, crimefightingly-speaking, and she hasn't made her debut yet, but if we could put her in the cartoon... she just loves cartoons."

"What's she called?"

"Um... she doesn't really have a... uh, I mean... Vine!" Holly said. "Her name is Vine. Hollywood and Vine."

"That's brilliant! Brilliant! Here, let me give you an address..."

 In a University Heights apartment that was nicer... if not terribly larger... than the one belonging to Holly Woodrow, the phone rang. A young woman set down her magazine and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Hello, have I reached the heroine who goes by 'Echo Chambers'?"

"That's my name, yes," Echo said, with the barest hint of irritation.

"Ms.... uh, Chambers, this is Andi Markham, a producer with Top Story? Lately you've been taking kind of a beating in the press, and I wondered if you wouldn't like a chance to come on our show and tell your side of the story, in your own words?"

"I'd love that, Ms. Markham," Echo said.

"Great! I'm going to be in your area tomorrow anyway, so why don't we set up a meeting sometime..."

"Okay, but first, how about you give me your extension, and I'll call directory assistance to get the main switchboard for Top Story, and..."

The line went dead. Echo sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Idiots," she said, picking up her magazine again.